


Ink Stains

by StarlightXNightmare



Series: Bendy and the Ink Machine [5]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Henry did not deserve that, Henry's fucking tired, OC feels real bad, a short story inspired by a headcanon I had for Henry, essentially Henry doesn't get mad too often
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 22:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14030310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightXNightmare/pseuds/StarlightXNightmare
Summary: Henry's been working on the next episode for five days straight with no sleep now after they fell behind schedule and he's finally finished all the planning, rough sketches, and choppy animations. It was time to pass off his plans to another animator as per Joey's request so he could finally get some sleep. Too bad an intern accidentally ruined all his work.





	Ink Stains

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a headcanon I had for Henry, which was it is incredibly hard to get him mad at you. The only person who can really get him angry is Joey.

Henry's hand shook violently as he struggled to finish writing the last piece of dialogue for the upcoming animation, and his blurring vision definitely wasn't helping his case.

Maybe..... maybe that last cup of coffee was a mistake...

He shook his head from side to side, briefly letting his trembling hand rest.

No! No... If he hadn't drank that eighth cup of coffee then he wouldn't be awake right now. It didn't matter if it made his already chicken scratch handwriting illegible; all that mattered was finishing the planning for the next animation and passing it onto the next animator. Normally he'd do most of the final animating himself but Joey insisted he pass his work onto another animator, complaining how Henry hadn't slept in several days and how he couldn't have his best animator incapable of working due to sleep deprivation. 

He stifled an enormous yawn with the back of his left hand, his right moving to dip his pen in his nearly filled inkwell. In his tired state, his hand bumped his inkwell in the top left corner of his desk. His other hand shot out from in front of his mouth to catch the falling inkwell before his mind could even process what just almost happened. His dark brown eyes were wide with horror and his mouth agape.

Holy... that would've ruined _all_ of his work. Wow... Talk about a serious disaster averted. That could've been an absolute catastrophe. 

He concentrated, making sure he properly dipped his pen in the inkwell before continuing to finish the last few words of the animation. He triumphantly threw his pen down with a weak laugh, staring down at all the papers covered in his drawings and nearly impossible to decipher handwriting littering his desk. He may have used the shorthanded system to finish lines of dialogue (which he would surely have to translate later for the voice actors), messed up a drawing or two (he'd have to warn the next animator who got his work about those), and accidentally wrote down the wrong lines for the wrong characters (which he'd have to correct before the voice actors got the script) but _it didn't matter. He was done!_  

He laughed, drawing some of his coworker's attentions to him, shoulders shaking as the thought made him want to cry.

He felt like he had just scaled a mountain and was currently standing atop the world! He poured his heart and soul into this episode, redrawing scenes, coming up with new ideas and discarding the previous ones, rewriting lines of dialogue: it was introducing Alice Angel after all. After those many sleepless nights, he was finally done! He could crash at his desk and sleep until the next morning peacefully, knowing he had done his part of the animation. He couldn't care less about the terrible crick in his neck and the excruciating pain in his back he'd feel when he woke up in the morning! Nothing could possibly bring him down!

He relished in his victory for a moment or two, allowing the ink to fully dry on the papers before shuffling them in one collected spot in front of him on the lower section of his desk. He stood up from his chair, stretching his arms above his head and cracking his spine. 

In that moment, when he had let his guard down, his desk was jostled sharply as an intern squeezed between the tight gaps of the animation desks, sending his full inkwell toppling over.

Time seemed to slow down as the inkwell tipped over, ink gushing out of the top all over his desk, soaking his papers. The inkwell fell off his desk and dropped to the wooden floorboards of the studio and smashed into a million pieces, little droplets of ink spraying through the air. 

The sound of glass shattering caught the attention of all the other animators, drawing their focus away from their work and to Henry. The intern whirled around, startled by the sound of breaking glass. Her hand covered her mouth in dawning horror, blue gray eyes wide with shock at the mess of black ink splattered across Henry's papers.

"Oh my god!" She exclaimed, her already loud voice much louder than normal. A collective hush fell across the Animation Department, the sound of pens scratching against paper ceasing immediately. 

Someone leapt up out of their seat and took off running down the hall, calling out behind him, "I'll get Wally and Mr. Drew!"  

Henry's brain struggled to catch up with what happened. All he could focus on was his work -the stuff he'd been working on for five days straight; the stuff he'd been working on without sleep and with very little food, water, and breaks- that had been completely ruined, stained with the black ink. A few papers had been saved and a few had little ink on it, but most appeared unsalvageable. All his drawings had been ruined, the papers not destroyed by ink having been most of his dialogue sheets and storyboarding.

"I-I'm... Oh god..... I'm... so, so, so, so sorry!" The intern stammered out, wringing her hands nervously.

Henry didn't acknowledge her for a moment, his brain trying to figure out how to respond appropriately to the situation. He swallowed hard, one of his ink stained trembling hands coming up to run themselves through his unkempt, greasy brown hair.

"I-It's..." He struggled to string words together, his mind in too much shock to even try to deal with the proper emotions he should be feeling. "It's..." He tried again. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath. "I-It's al-alright. It's... alright. I-It's fi-... fine. I... I-I can juh-just re-... _redo it all_. Nuh-no har-harm duh-duh-done."

He uncovered his eyes and picked up the soaking wet papers that had had all of his rough sketches and rough animations on them. Ink dribbled down the papers and onto his hands and the floorboards. His vision blurred but not from lightheadedness or fatigue.

To all the animators' horror, their Head of the Department was crying.

Fat, hot tears dripped down from his bloodshot eyes, rolling down his cheeks, and falling onto the ruined papers in his hands. His shoulders shook, his breathing coming in ragged sobs. "O-Oh g-god... I-I... I'm guh-going to have t-to re-redo them a-all! S-shit! I-I'm a-a-already so... so fuh-fuh-far be-behind schedule; I-I'll nuh-never catch-catch u-up!"

The animators were incredibly uncomfortable. They had expected him to yell and scream at the intern who ruined all of his work. They hadn't expected for Henry to cry. They hadn't seen Henry cry since he normally did that at home or when no one was there. They certainly haven't heard Henry swear too much either: he only did that when he was really upset or angry. For the most part, Henry was completely calm and restrained.

Three pairs of footsteps rapidly approached before the door to the Animation Department was slammed open, making a bunch of animators jump. The animator who had rushed out to get the janitor and their boss was back.

"What's going on here!?" The booming voice of Joey Drew, the infamous owner of Joey Drew Studios, echoed through the silent department. His mop of black hair fell into his narrowed icy blue eyes, the tall man leaning heavily on his cane with his breath coming out in huffing pants. The man was normally such a cheery and charming fellow, bearing a wide smile and sparkling icy blue eyes, so it was unnerving to see him so angry.

"M-Mister... Mister Drew!" The intern squeaked out, clearly terrified of the man. "I-I accidentally bumped into Mr. Batim's desk and I spilled an inkwell all over the papers he had been working on!" 

His eyes glanced over to Henry and his anger instantly melted. He breathed in sharply. "Oh no, Hen." He limped his way through the room and towards the sobbing animator. As soon as he got close enough to his friend, he gently removed the soiled papers from his grip and set them down on his desk away from the notes and dialogue that had been spared from the ink's clutches.

Joey slung an arm over Henry's shoulder and pulled him close, muttering lowly in his ear. "Hey, Hen..... c'mon... don't cry. It's not your fault..." His head popped up briefly so he could glare at the gawking animators. "What are you all staring at!? Get back to work!"

Animators turned back to their work in record speed, the sound of lead and ink scratching on paper filling up the otherwise silent department. 

Joey turned to Wally, who had been standing awkwardly in the doorway to the department. "Clean up this mess and throw away any papers that are ruined." Wally nodded wordlessly, his posture shrunk in on himself a bit.

He turned to the intern next. "What's your name?" 

"M-Maxine," she muttered quietly.

"Well, Maxine, you'll be coming to my office with Henry so we can sort out this mess." Joey seethed quietly.

With that he led Henry out of the Animation Department, with the sheepish and guilty intern trailing behind.

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Maxine rubbed her forehead, forcing her eyes to focus of the last bit of animation she was doing. She was _so_ close to finishing she could almost taste it. Or... maybe someone had spiked the coffee with ink again. She wasn't sure.

It had been six days since she had accidentally bumped into Henry's desk and boy was she sure guilty about that. The animation was supposed to be due in seven days and she had ruined all of Henry's rough animation of the episode. The dialogue, plans for the episode, and rough sketches of Alice Angel had been salvaged but otherwise they had to start from scratch. All the other animators had moved onto the next episode; they were unable to fall even further behind schedule than they already were and the voice actors were working on the dialogue while musicians were practising the music for the episode.

Joey had pulled her and Henry into his office. Once Henry had calmed down a bit, Joey started yelling at her, telling her what a clumsy idiot she was for ruining all they had ready for the animation set to release in seven days. Henry placated him, saying it was an accident and that he could just redo everything. Joey had refused to let Henry work on this project again without having him rest first. He turned to her and told her he's seen her drawings and that she was going to be helping Henry finish the whole animation. She wouldn't be paid for any work she'd do, she wouldn't get any recognition, and once they were done with the animation, she was being fired.

Henry had spent a lot of his time sleeping in Joey's office and beginning to eat proper meals again while she worked. She drew rough sketches of the characters on every page before filling in the background all with pencil, getting hand cramps every five or so minutes with how fast her pencil flew across the paper. Then she cleaned the process up with Henry's help: drawing the final forms of each character, adding detail to the characters and background, and going over everything carefully with ink. With short little one to three hour naps, minimal eating and drinking, and very few trips to the bathroom, she and Henry finished the whole animation on the sixth day, a whole day before it was to be aired.

The whole thing was absolute hell, and only made her guiltier about screwing everything up for Henry. He worked under the stress of deadlines daily, and she had come along and made him redo everything. She forced herself to work harder than she had in her entire life, not allowing herself to eat, drink, sleep, take a short one minute break, or go to the bathroom unless she felt as if she had earned it. She spent six full day and nights in the studio without a shower or even acknowledging her friends.

When she had turned the all the papers with her and Henry's drawings in to Joey, he looked mildly impressed. He thumbed through the pages before sighing and putting them down, informing her that just last night while she had fallen asleep at her desk, Henry had vouched for her to become a full fledged animator, meaning she wasn't going to be fired after all. He begrudgingly complimented her work before shooing her out, telling her to leave before he changed his mind about keeping her around.

While she was ecstatic about not getting kicked out and being made a full time animator who was getting paid and everything, she couldn't help but notice that the next day Henry's desk had been moved into the claustrophobic little room where the stairs led up to Mr. Drew's office. She figured that was her fault; his desk now stationed there to prevent any more klutzy interns or employees from ruining his work. Henry seemed very happy with his new seating arrangement away from all the other animators, so the situation appeared to be a win-win for the two of them: her finally getting a stable job while Henry got a new animator to help lessen the work loads and a new, secluded workstation.

Sometimes grievous mistakes could turn out alright in the end for both parties... but that sure as hell doesn't mean Maxine is going to go around bumping into other animators' desks anytime soon. She'll make sure she's extra careful about passing by everyone's desks from now on.


End file.
